THE YEAR OF THE.....

The year 2011 began with a quick scan of the bird feeders. Would the first bird of the year be a House Finch? or a House Sparrow? or something more exotic? Incredibly a thorough scan of the feeders and trees didn't turn up a single bird! Checking another window produced the reason why... a first year COOPER'S HAWK was perched right next to the feeders! What a great bird to start the year off and certainly this is the first time I have tallied this species to start out a year. Hopefully it bodes well for a year of high quality birds and birding!




As I filled the feeders up I was surprised to hear several COMMON REDPOLLS calling from overhead. They didn't seem to land but we'll keep an eye on the nyger feeder over the next couple of days. Hopefully they are the vanguard of a bigger movement.

ADULT MALE COOPERS

There seems to be at least three different Cooper's Hawks visiting the feeders this past week. After the young female, we were visited by an adult female, and then today Kathi noticed an adult male at the feeder. He sat for at least two minutes just eight feet away from the living room window allowing me to snap off about twenty pics. The one below is probably the best.


As you can see from this cropped head and shoulders shot, this adult male was calling a single loud note much like the call heard last week. I guess this is a common call which I somehow have never heard before - a good reminder that there is always so much to learn!


There were also some signs of spring this week with returning Pine Siskin heard and a small group of Canada Geese flying over in early morning. With the warmer weather this coming weekend there should be lots of waterfowl pouring in. Can't wait!

ODD COOPER'S HAWK VOCALIZATION

I'm back home in the snow and ice for two weeks now and finally getting out to do some birding. Today I had an interesting encounter with a rather tame immature Cooper's Hawk. Because of the large size this bird was almost certainly a female.

Here are some digiscoped images of this bird taken through my Kowa TS 883.







What attracted me to this bird was the repeated almost meow like vocalization it was producing. It repeated this call in bouts of about five to eight calls a second or two apart. These bouts were repeated every one to two minutes for nearly an hour! If it had been late summer or the fall I would have thought it was a food begging call, but really not sure what was going on in late February! If you click on the video link below you can hear a few of these calls in the clip. If anyone is familiar with this call, I'd appreciate you dropping me a line at peleetom@netcore.ca